Alright, let’s talk about James Franklin over at Vandy. I remember when he first got that job. Vanderbilt football, you know, it wasn’t exactly top of the pile. So, I figured, let’s keep an eye on this, see what happens. It became a bit of a personal project for me, just tracking his progress there.
My Process Watching Him
So, what I did was pretty simple. No fancy spreadsheets or anything, just paying attention. I started making a point to check their scores every weekend during the season. If a game was on TV, maybe I’d tune in for a bit, see how the team looked, how they carried themselves.
- Watched for energy on the sidelines.
- Checked the scores, win-loss column each week.
- Read some articles here and there about the team’s progress.
- Noticed when they started getting mentioned for bowl games more often.
What I Saw Happen
First year, well, it takes time. But then, things started to shift. You could kinda feel it, even just reading the reports or catching highlights. They started winning games they usually wouldn’t. It wasn’t just luck; they seemed tougher, more disciplined.
I kept track, just jotting things down mentally or in a notebook sometimes. By the time he left, my notes basically showed he’d gone 24-15 over his three seasons there. Now, for Vanderbilt, that’s a heck of a run. Seriously, people were talking about it. It really felt like he’d lifted the whole program’s expectations. They were hitting heights folks hadn’t seen in a long, long time there.
And you look at his career since then, right? The guy’s got a ton of wins overall, something like 112-54 last I checked. It kinda proved that what I saw happening at Vandy wasn’t a fluke. He knew how to build things up.
I even remember catching some press conference clip or reading about it somewhere. He was talking with another coach, asking him about being independent, saying everyone should be in a conference. Just showed he was thinking about the bigger picture of college football too, not just his own team.
End Result of My Tracking
So, yeah, that was my little exercise in following the Franklin-Vandy years. It was interesting to watch unfold, step by step. Seeing a coach come in and genuinely change the trajectory of a program that historically struggled. It doesn’t always last, coaches move on, that’s the game. But watching that climb, win by win, seeing them get to bowl games consistently for that stretch? Yeah, that was quite the thing to track for a few years. Made me appreciate how much difference leadership can make, even against tough odds.
